The Dawn Before
by CG again
Summary: Takes place at the end of Out of My Mind: Spike is kissing Buffy...and doesn't wake up. Season Five as it could have been, as Buffy struggles with her attraction to Spike and the feelings that inevitably follow.


Written for Seasonal Spuffy. Thanks to moll-e-mollz and somethingtosingabout for their advice and assistance in this one!

* * *

His kisses are like a thousand new sensations, all at once united into a rush of touch so powerful that she can't break free, and she doesn't think she'll ever want to. His words wash over her in a sea of emotion, murmurs that she clings to without really hearing, sounds that make her writhe and moan with only their subtle, sensual tone. His body against hers is a pillar of vice, everything she's ever needed now trapped against her, pulling her in.

The spell feels as though it can never end, not while this all feels so right, but just the thought of forever is enough to jar her from her daze and bring her back to the present.

She tears away from him, her eyes wide with horror and despair. "I can't!"

He seems just as stunned, his expression a kaleidoscope of emotion, hatred and anger and disgust and shame and desire…so much desire, and she takes an involuntary step toward him before they're wrapped in each other's embrace once more.

It can't be wrong, she thinks dazedly. Not when it all feels so right, so real; not when kissing a dead man is setting her on fire. His arms hold her flush against him, his hands caressing the back of her neck with surprisingly soft touches. He sighs against her lips and she wonders idly why he's still panting and gasping as hard as she when he doesn't need to breathe.

But Spike's always been the exception to the rule.

Now his hands are moving lower, slipping under her tank top, and she tightens her grip on him, letting him slide upwards with cool hands against her heated skin. She 's certain that he doesn't realize what he's doing, not until she pulls away for a moment so he can fully divest her of her shirt, and then his face falls into a mask of utter awe and lust and she just has to devour his lips again.

He's leaving a trail of kisses down her neck now, and she throws back her head and cries for him to do it again, shuddering when he manages to yank off her bra and turn his attentions to her chest. Perfection, this is perfection…

Marred only by a sudden shriek of _"Blondie Bear!"_ that makes Spike pull away from her and turn to stare at Harmony.

Harmony looks aghast. "Were you making out with the _Slayer_?"

It isn't 'making out,' Buffy wants to contradict. It's nothing as simple and juvenile as that. It's a religious experience, a moment of truth and feeling and completion that she's sure she'll never reach again. But Spike is looking at her expectantly, waiting to take her cue as to what their reactions to this should be, just as he did nearly a year before after Willow's spell, and she has to quantify it somehow. So she just shakes her head, yanks her top back on, and moves to leave, to give herself more time to process and adjust to the earth-shattering revelation that she has just had.

"Buffy!" he calls after her, but she's already gone into the sunlight of the cemetery, and he's forced to watch helplessly from the shadows as she flees.

* * *

Riley is asleep in her bed when she returns, and she's suddenly overwhelmed with so much guilt that she's almost glad that Harmony interrupted them when she did. Almost. She crawls into bed beside Riley and tries to push the memories of Spike's lips on hers from her mind, but it's a losing battle. She can't completely forget, not when the bleached pain-in-her-ass is still hanging around Sunnydale, temptation so close that she's suddenly flushed again with the memories of his body pressed against hers.

So it's a physical attraction, nothing more. It _can't_ be more, and she can't be blamed for it. Spike happens to be a pretty fine specimen, pale and flawless with a body shaped like a Greek statue and eyes so blue and deep that she could lose herself in them…

Attraction. That's all. And she'd been caught up in the moment, but now she would be able to resist. She has Riley, and she loves him, and just because she is- has always been- attracted to Spike, it doesn't mean that she's just going to come up to him and start kissing him again next time she sees him. No. And if she has to stake him to keep herself from doing it, so be it.

* * *

But the next time they meet, she has places to go and no patience to fight with him. "I don't know why you're here," she informs him, yanking him out from behind the tree where he's been lurking. "But you need to leave. Now. I don't have time for you."

His eyebrows raise in that mocking way that she's grown to despise. "You don't know why I'm here?" He curls his tongue into a leer. "Just thought I could get a little more of what you gave me last time."

There's her Spike, reminding her just why she hates him too much to ever be tempted again. She lands a fist to his nose and turns to stalk off, but he catches her hand and pulls her back to him, and the next thing she knows, they're lost in each other's arms, seeking something that they've only been able to find once before, falling deeper and deeper into the pit that's beginning to feel like a certain sort of heaven.

The kind she'll go to hell for.

She pulls away from him for what seems like the hundredth time in these past few days. "No," she says firmly. "This is twisted and wrong, and I'm not going to keep doing it."

"Wrong." He shakes his head. "How often are you going to use that one? It was bad enough at the Bronze that time…"

She's momentarily puzzled, which is good. Puzzled is much better than lusty. "What time?" Oh, god, had she gotten drunk or drugged and done this before? Does this happen all the time? Is Spike _expecting_ it?

He stares at her. "Few months ago, at the Bronze? You told me you would ride me at a gallop until my legs buckled and eyes rolled up. 'Snot something I'd forget easily."

She shakes her head. "No. No, that never happened, and you're delusional. I'm out of here." Giles wants her to head back to the factory where the Dagon Sphere had been found, and she really doesn't want to hear about this right now.

He pulls her back to him, his expression suddenly furious. "Don't deny it now! We were at the Bronze, you were wearing that delectable color on your lips, roundabout the time that that rogue slayer was wandering town…"

She shoves him away. "Faith. Faith was in my body, and you were…" _God_. And then she pulls him back to her, because there's no way that she's going to let the memories of Faith in her body sustain him, not ever. If he's going to remember her, he's going to remember _her_.

And when they're finally back to where they had been at first, lost in each other and the drowning sea of desire, she has to spoil it again by remembering her mission. "I can't," she whispers against his lips. "This can't happen."

"Why not?" he argues between kisses. "It's just two enemies, finding some mutual-" One arm dips low unexpectedly and he rubs the heel of his hand against her sex. She nearly chokes. "-Pleasure in each other."

"Ohh…" She staggers forward, trapping a leg between hers and rubbing against it with wanton abandon. "It's…not…that…simple."

"It could be," he points out, and now they're not kissing anymore, just standing so close that she can feel the conundrum that is his cool breath on her face. "This is just a bit of fun."

"No…" And her resolve is weakening, but then she spots the curtains moving in front of her house and remembers Dawn, who is just a spell. She shoves Spike into the tree behind which he'd been lurking and runs off to where she'd found the Dagon Sphere.

He's still there when she returns, but she's too overcome with the surge of information about Dawn and a new enemy to acknowledge him. Later in the night, she remembers this with gratitude, glad that even with temptation as strong as he, she is able to resist, at least for a bit. Maybe this way, at least, she can avoid him until the desire fades. But then she peers out her window and sees that he's still there, leaning against the tree, his eyes fixed on hers. "Stalk much?" she mutters, and closes the shades when he opens his mouth to respond.

* * *

He starts following her on patrols, getting in the way of her best kills and stealing the rest from her, and kissing away her fury when she rounds on him afterwards. He delights in her anger, brushes away her shame, and laughs at her vain attempts to push him away. She's addicted to him and he knows it, recognizes her guilt and horror and finds new ways to overcome them every time he sees her. She wonders what he gets out of these clandestine meetings when he has Harmony in his crypt and he doesn't care about her at all. The debasement of a slayer, perhaps. No, the debasement of _her_.

_"What happens Saturday?"_

_"I kill you."_

But he failed, he's always failed, and now he's finally pouring all his frustrations at his failures and his impotence on her, by making her hungry for his touch and his touch alone. She hates herself for it, for what it's doing to her relationship with Riley, to her sense of self, to the icon of slayer that it is her duty to uphold; but she can't stay away, not when he's always around and the temptation is so strong.

And yet, when she's in his arms, when they finally reach that unified level of twisted _rightness_, she gives up on trying to resist, because it's a lost cause. What he can make her feel is so beyond anything she's ever experienced that sometimes, she wonders if maybe this is what she is, what she's meant to be- Spike's.

But she's never given herself to him completely, not even when she feels so wholly gone around him. She can't let him inside physically, because that's the last barrier left, and if she lets him take over her there, too, she suspects that she'll have surrendered her last vestiges of self. And he's been surprisingly accepting of it, understood her need when he usually ignores it, and she thinks that maybe, part of his dream is for her to be so far gone that she offers her body to him with no prompting.

But sometimes when he looks at her, his eyes soften and he kisses her like Riley used to, his lips gentle and closed and his hands tenderly caressing her hair instead of tangling in it, and that makes her feel more uncomfortable than anything else he does, because for a moment there, they're not enemies at all. They're not lost anymore, but they've finally been found, and she's more afraid of being found by him than of anything else in the universe. Those days, Spike isn't a temptation or an idol but a man, and it's terrifying to see him so real. Those days are the easiest of all for her to flee, and she tries never to think of them again.

It comes as a surprise to no one when Riley leaves. She's been pushing him away for months now, so drunk in Spike that she can hardly stand being in another man's embrace. He knows about Spike, she suspects, and it's confirmed when she visits Spike's crypt after Riley departs and finds him lying on the ground, unconscious, a stake through his chest.

She's horrified until she realizes that it's made of plastic, and then she's simply revolted. "Why would he do this to you?" she murmurs when he finally stirs.

"Take a bloody guess," he mutters, but then his eyes are open and hopeful, and he has that soft look on his face again. "So he's gone now?"

"Yeah." She glances around. "Where's Harmony? Why didn't she help you?"

He shrugs and winces in pain when the movement shifts the area where the stake had been. "Haven't seen her in ages. Sent her off when…"

_Oh_. She feels even worse than she had when she had realized that Riley knew about her dalliances with Spike. An evil vampire had done the right thing, and she'd been too much of a coward to do the same. "So it's just been me," she feels obligated to confirm, because if it hasn't, at least they'd have been on the same page.

But he manages a smile and reaches out to touch her cheek. "It's always been you." And then he's kissing her, but now it's _off_, like there's real emotion involved, and she pulls away abruptly.

"I need to go." She makes her way to the door, unable to look back at the vampire.

"Fine! Leave me here to wither away!" he calls out after her, but she ignores him. He'll be fine on his own. He always has been.

* * *

She's able to avoid him for a few days when a troll comes to town, and is followed immediately by the Council, and even after her birthday and the revelation (for Dawn, anyway) that Dawn is the Key, but she knows it can't last forever. She's drawn to him, and though she has suspected in the past that it's contingent on the fact that he remains distant and immovable, a monster and a temptation- but never as addicted to her as she is to him- she's now beginning to doubt it. But the dread of connection is combined with the need for the same, and though she fears the emotion she sees in his eyes, it isn't enough to keep him away.

And then comes the night when she opens her door and a saggy-skinned, long-eared demon is standing on the other side, looking uncomfortable and vaguely apologetic. He holds up his hands. "Don't hurt me! I'm harmless, I swear!"

"Do tell." She crosses her arms and leans against the doorjamb, ready for whatever this creature is about to throw at her.

He shuffles his feet a little before he finally speaks. "I'm Clem. Spike's buddy?"

And just like that, her world freezes and she can't speak. She can't think, because Clem is saying that Spike's gone, he thinks dust, because he'd never leave town without saying anything. "You're wrong," she manages. "He's not gone."

"It took me a while to believe it, too," Clem says almost sadly, which is impossible, because demons can't feel. "And even more time to come to you. I'm sorry. He was a pretty good guy when he wasn't obsessing over how to kill you or how much he loved you."

She'd thought that nothing could break her even further, but then the ground falls out from under her and she's gone. "Loved," she repeats, feeling suddenly faint.

"More than anything," Clem confirms. "He'd talk our ears off about you, you know. First just friendly bragging about how he was getting hot and heavy with you- Just with a few close friends," he adds hastily, but she can't bring forth the energy to be angry about that now. "Then it was nonstop moaning about how you'd never love him and he hated you, but any moron could see that he was just covering. It was all love."

"Oh, god." She slumps against the door. Clem makes some brief farewells and escapes into the night, leaving her alone with thoughts she's never wanted, much like the vampire they center around. She doesn't mourn, she doesn't rejoice, just numbly goes through the days, cares for her mother and Dawn, fights demons, and tries not to think about the vampire who claimed to love her.

And like a bad penny, he's back less than a week after Clem's announcement, sitting on top of a mausoleum in the cemetery while she fights a demon below. When she sees him, she's so startled that she forgets the demon, and he hurtles off the building to land on it, grabbing the dagger from her hand and shoving it into the demon's throat.

She punches him. "Where the hell have you been?"

He just grins and swoops down on her, and she gladly accepts his kiss and drowns, as she is wont to do around him. The wound from the stake is long gone and he's been feeding better than usual, but his body is still hard and limber, and she sinks against him with a sigh when he nibbles a path down her neck, pulling at it with blunt teeth and sucking greedily at the skin.

She can't pinpoint the exact moment when they fall to the ground, but suddenly she's lying on soft grass and he's crawling up her body, pressing kisses to every inch of bare skin he can find, and for a moment, she can almost believe that Clem is right, that the addiction goes both ways. And that in itself is too disturbing, so she flips him over, gives him a long, soul-draining kiss, and rolls away so they're lying side by side, staring up at the stars.

Buffy doesn't look at the stars often. Spending the night with your head turned to the heavens is tantamount to suicide in Sunnydale, especially for the slayer, so they're still a mystery to her, and she says as much to Spike during the silence that follows their separation.

"See that bright one?" he points upwards, and she can't really follow his hand- from her angle, it looks like he's gesturing at a light pole- but she nods anyway, trying to pinpoint the star that looks brightest. "That's Rigel," he tells her. "Just above it you can see those three stars in a row- see?" She does see the three, she thinks, bunched together and kind of dim. "Alnilam, Alnitak, and Mintaka. The hunter Orion's belt."

"I've heard of that." He shows her the four stars bunched together in a nebula, called Trapezium and located where Orion's family jewels are, he points out with a dirty smile, and she smacks him lightly on the arm.

"That'll show me, pet," he says, unbothered, and continues the survey of the sky. "See Procyon, over there? And there-" He pauses, squinting upwards. "Hey, I think that's Saturn."

"Where?" Saturn doesn't look that magnificent, just another bright star that doesn't twinkle as much, but she decides to take Spike's word for it, especially when he pulls her to lie on top of him so that she "can see from his angle." The planes of his body are smooth and lean and his hardness is pressing, not uncomfortably, into her rear. She wriggles a little and he groans, and just like that, the mood is changed.

They claw at each other like the animals they've become, pulling and tearing at clothing and grasping for skin and lips and teeth, until Spike's shirtless and Buffy's all but naked. He doesn't try to pull off her panties, respects the one thing she's firm about, and instead attacks her breasts, tugging at each nipple with one hand while his mouth's attentions are near her navel, making her thrust her hips wildly upward as they move. She's far from unresponsive herself, and one hand is under Spike's pants and wrapped around his cock, squeezing and pulling just enough to make him scream. He's babbling nonsense at her as she brings him off and is so completely intoxicated in her that she remembers Clem's words again and knows now that they must be true.

He holds off on coming for just a minute, stretching out his ministrations to her upper body until she's quivering with need and the very pinnacle of ecstasy; and then he moves quickly to knead at her through her pants for a few seconds, just long enough to send her toppling over the edge, crying out his name in a long, piercing shriek as she comes.

He must have come at the same time, though she couldn't possibly have noticed it while she was overcome, because now his pants are damp and he's nearly as limp as she. They flop against each other helplessly, laughing a little at their inability to move, and finally give up and settle back onto the ground.

"Clem said you were dead," Buffy says finally.

He shrugs. "Had to take care of something. It's done now."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter."

She sighs, glances over at him. There's a secretive, Mona Lisa smile playing at the edges of his lips and she quickly deduces that he won't be giving her details. Well. She's got other topics they need to discuss. "Clem also said that you're in love with me."

"Did he?" But he sounds unsurprised and uninterested, more focused on the stars than her words, and she decides to take a different tack, because this is_important_.

"I think you're just obsessed with me." There. She sees it, a flash of frustration that crosses his face when she cheapens his feelings, and she has the answer she's been dreading. She doesn't want him to love her, not when he's promised that this wouldn't mean anything, and if he's broken that promise, then how long will it be before she does the same?

His eyes are dark, and she can tell that it's a struggle for him to keep his voice even. "Dru."

"What?" Why is he bringing up his ex now? He doesn't see _her_ waxing eloquent about Angel or Riley in their post-coital haze. Especially not now, after he's as good as confessed his love.

"That's where I was," he admits, and her annoyance grows, but she suppresses it, waiting for him to elaborate. "What you and I have…it's so _empty_. I couldn't take it anymore, and when Dru came back to me, I seized the opportunity to have something real again."

How can he say that, when this is the only thing that has felt real to her in forever? But no, she amends. _He_ makes it real for her. And apparently, she isn't enough for even an evil, bloodsucking vampire. "So why'd you come back?" she demands irritably.

He reaches out a hand to cup her cheek, and she turns away at first, but eventually relents and lets him guide her to face him. "I realized that even something that isn't real with you is better than anything different with anyone else," he murmurs, and when he kisses her again, she doesn't pull away.

* * *

She's still uncomfortable with his love, so they don't talk about it again, just resume their clandestine meetings each night on patrol. She's long ago stopped resisting him and now accepts him as readily as she does any other man in her life, and he no longer strives to anger her but instead does everything in his power to please her. Their relationship isn't gentle, but it has become less about hurting each other and more about pleasure and that frightening love that he has for her. He's soft and caring, and there's a part of her that loves it, even as the slayer and the girl both fight the threat that Spike's love is to her very essence.

When she loses her mother, she pushes him away, unwilling to give him the power that her dependency can grant, and he doesn't pressure her, but she still glances out the window before bed each night and sees the orange light of a cigarette burning under his tree. He's not going to let her go so easily, of course, and it doesn't take long before she relents and lets him into her bed at night, still in all ways but the most important one. And once he's in her room, something else changes. He's no longer just a sexual being, but a confidant as well, someone to whom she can spill her worries and fears and needs without him expecting anything in return. He never breaks her confidences or acts on them- except the time he tries to give her a check for one thousand dollars, but after she rips it up and kicks him out for the night, he gets the message- and he's always there, his entire life revolving around hers.

She doesn't know how she ever thought that he had the upper hand in their relationship. He's her willing slave, whether she likes it or not, and his love for her dictates his every move.

It doesn't take long for Dawn to find him in her room one night and key to what is going on, but to Buffy's relief, she keeps quiet about it and begins to regard the vampire with a level of hero worship that he adores, milking it for all its worth as Buffy rolls her eyes and tries not to smile. And now that Dawn is aware of Spike's relationship with Buffy, he starts spending more and more time at the house, and soon enough, there's blood in the fridge and an entire drawer in Buffy's room is filled with black tees. As Spike's love for Buffy expands to love for Dawn, they settle into a domestic relationship that Dawn and Spike embrace- and maybe Buffy does a little, too.

It takes much longer before Willow drops by unexpectedly to find Buffy and Spike making out like teenagers on the couch. There's an intervention, of course, in which she has to explain Spike to her friends, and though they're trying to be understanding- in Xander's case, to the disturbing effect of sounding like Buffy has some competition for Spike- she finds herself quickly irritated with their assumption that this is just a bad reaction to her mother's death. "We've been together since Riley's operation," she informs them, and the stunned silence that follows almost makes her laugh- which she _knows_ is Spike's influence on her, since only he seems to derive that much amusement from discord.

"But…but what about Riley?" Willow finally asks. Giles is scrubbing at his glasses so hard that Buffy thinks they might break, Anya's nodding approvingly- and maybe it's also Spike's influence, but she's starting to like Anya a little more- and Xander's just gaping, his mouth opening and closing but no words coming out.

Buffy doesn't know what to say, and she really has no excuse for what happened with Riley, so she just gives Willow a helpless shrug. It comes as a relief when Dawn tears into the room, breathless and frantic. "Buffy! Spike! They took Spike!"

It takes a few minutes before they can finally calm Dawn down to explain. "We were at his crypt, picking up some-" She pauses, glancing around warily at the Scoobies and giving Buffy a significant look. "_Stuff_, when the minions started battering down the door. Spike made me hide downstairs, so I didn't see what happened, but when I finally went back up, there were dead minions everywhere and he was gone." She's crying now, and Buffy understands the fear of losing another member of their little family, so she pulls her close and tries to calm her own pounding heart.

"Buffy." There's a hand on her shoulder, and she breaks out of the world that is Dawn-and-Buffy to turn to Giles. His face is very somber. "Does Spike know who the Key is?"

Of course he does; she tells him everything. She says as much to her friends and watches as grim masks settle over their faces. "He wouldn't tell." She is certain, but they all look doubtful, and a cold fear grips her heart as she thinks of what Glory might do to him when he doesn't cooperate. Spike's able to handle most demons, but against a god, he's just as helpless as she's been.

He is somewhat resourceful, though, and they're able to rescue him while he's in the middle of a pretty lame escape of his own. She hurries him back to the car and orders Xander to take them back to her house, ignoring how uncomfortable her friends get at that. But then Xander nods and agrees, tossing Spike a look of pity jumbled with respect, and Buffy thinks that maybe, just maybe, this isn't going to be so hard.

It takes a few days before Spike begins to recover, and Buffy and Dawn dote on him the whole time. Dawn even manages to convince Ben from the hospital to give her expired human blood for Spike, though Ben doesn't even bat an eyelash at the request and they conclude that he probably has other vampires he supplies as well. Spike isn't well enough for more than a gentle kiss or two, but Buffy snuggles up next to him at night and they talk and sleep beside each other. Her friends are pretty tolerant of Spike and Giles is dubious but resigned, and finally, everything is going perfectly.

Then Glory hurts Tara and Tara lets slip who the Key is, and they're all running together, fleeing Glory because they have no other choice. When Dawn is taken, Buffy loses everything and sinks into a despair that only her friends can pull her out of, and before she knows it, the moment of truth is upon them and the final confrontation with Glory is at hand.

For the first time in what feels like forever, she and Spike are alone with each other, in the house to collect weapons for the approaching battle. She pulls him into the house by the lapels of his duster and molds her mouth to his, wrapping her legs around him and letting his weight propel them across the room and into the closest wall. He holds her close, murmuring whispered words of love that she'd long given up on putting a stop to, and now she drinks them in, takes in everything at once, his body and voice and lips and love, like she might never have them again.

He senses her desperation and pulls away from the kiss to wrap his arms around her waist and hold her against him, resting his head on hers in a semblance of peace. "What's wrong?" he asks, then laughs and adds, "Aside from the obvious."

She shrugs, burying her head in his chest. "Dawn. She's…we're not all going to make it."

"I know." He presses a soft kiss to the top of her head. "I'll protect her until the end of the world, you know."

"I know." She mirrors his tone, then pulls back for a moment to stare up at him. "I want to make love with you. Before." _Before one of us is gone._

He's taken aback, she can tell, in the way he freezes like a deer in the headlights, staring down at her with nothing short of awe. Once she thought that this was all a manipulation for him, and that sex was the endgame, but now she knows that it's so much more than that for him. It's her, giving herself to him, and finally making this all _real_, the way he says she never has.

She tries to explain her revelation to him, but he laughs and shakes his head. "God, Buffy, this has been real for a long time. I couldn't ask for anything more…"

"I love you," she blurts out, and he falls silent again, gaping at her. She manages a smile. "And if you're not going to say it back, this is majorly awkward, because-"

He snatches her up and carries her to the couch, his eyes suspiciously bright and his hands already pulling off her clothing. She gladly helps him, doing the same back to him, and soon they're caught in each other's embrace and deeply, blessedly lost. "I love you," he whispers, and thrusts into her for the very first time.

She screams.

They don't have enough time to make it last, not when Dawn's fate and Glory are still looming near, but it doesn't matter, because in just a few minutes, Buffy's closer to Spike than she's ever dreamed of, and it's heaven. She'd thought they completed each other before, but never like this, and never so_right_, and she loves him a little more every second for it.

When it's over, Spike kisses her forehead and promises again, "Till the end of the world. Even if that happens to be today."

They kiss one last time before they leave again. It's rich with promises that they both know they can't keep, and Buffy lets herself fall once more, finally recognizing the rightness for what it truly is. It was always love, creeping in and battering her defenses until she has no choice but to accept it, and now that she has, she wonders how she ever lived without it.

They part reluctantly after what feels like forever and no time at all, and the slayer and her vampire begin the trek back to the Magic Box for the beginning of the end.

**The End.**

_"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."  
**-Oscar Wilde**_


End file.
